Welcome to Winding Pathways
Winding Pathways encourages you to create a wonderous yard, whether that yard is an expansive acreage, a suburban lot or a condominium balcony. Go outside and play!
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Free Range Kids
Walking to and from school in the 1950s and ‘60s yielded exercise, adventure, learning and fond memories.
Rich walked or bicycled about a mile to and from school down one road, along a woodsy path, across the Rockaway River, and around a wetland to school. On her way to Florida schools, Marion leaped over logs oblivious to the potential rattlesnakes that could have been sunning.
Spring Symphony
After an unusually mild winter we were hardly surprised by the early onset of spring’s symphony. At Winding Pathways in Iowa it usually starts on clear cold February days when male cardinals begin their beeker beeker beeker call. They were close to their normal...
Cosmetologists, Mammoths and the Osage Orange
Imagine an enormous elephant in the back yard, its huge tusks smashing a tree while it gobbles leaves, branches, and fruits. It once happened! Mastodons, mammoths, camels, horses, and sloths were once native Iowa wild animals before they slipped into extinction some...
Backyard Beekeeping
Interest in beekeeping is heading toward the stratosphere. Although the number of bee colonies may be declining more and more are showing up in suburban and urban yards.
We kept bees for years and enjoyed watching them visit garden flowers. Their honey was delicious.
Indoor Vegetable Gardening
Last fall, approaching my three-quarters of a century mark in age, I decided in my gardening life to experiment on a different level with growing vegetables. Winter was quickly on its way with its sharp spears of cold. Some seedlings, specifically beets, carrots and lettuce, would meet their untimely demise if I didn’t intervene.
Rainwater Barrels and Gardens
How ironic that many homeowners don’t harvest the rain that falls on their property, yet they buy water to irrigate their lawn and garden. Harvest free water by using rain barrels and rain gardens.
Our Lives Shared With Chickens
I’m not sure where it came from but somehow I became fascinated with chickens. I was eight years old living in suburban New Jersey, didn’t know anyone who had chickens, and no one in my family had ever had them. The interest came on strong 58 years ago and I’m still at it.
Dad and Mom were supportive and, I think, saw chickens as a way to learn. “Let’s build a coop and get a few,” Dad said, and soon he and I were building a chicken house just big enough to hold four hens. It was an education in basic carpentry. I bought four hens from Mr. Lawrence, the local egg man in an era when eggs, milk, and bread were delivered to the door.
The hens were my pride and joy. What I brought into the kitchen weren’t just eggs. They were brown jewels. Sometimes I’d just watch the hens after school and learned they are intelligent, communicate with each other through various calls, and are clean and odorless. They taught me that if I cared for animals humanely I’d receive an education, entertainment, and delicious food.
Kids Write About Playing In The Snow
Kids enthusiasm about playing in the snow is evident with snowmen around town, tracks across yards, piles of wet boots and mittens and gay laughter ringing through the town. Two children share their reasons they love to “Go Outside and Play!”
An Amazing Array of Maple Syrup Festivals!
Late this winter and early spring dozens of maple syrup festivals will shake the winter blahs. From the Midwest to the Atlantic and from the mid-South to Canada folks will be getting outside as days lengthen and temperatures warm to welcome the season’s first harvest.
Syruping Season At Hand!
Preparing for the season’s first food harvest is a fun way to spend a few hours during winter’s deep freeze. Cornell University Cooperative and New York’s DNR have an excellent PDF “Maple Syrup Production for the Beginner.” Wikipedia features a comprehensive overview of syruping.
Trees of many maple species will flow sweet sap as soon as daytime temperatures rise into the high 30s while nights drop below the freezing point. That can happen in early February down South and six weeks later in Canada.
WHAT KIND OF TREE IS THAT
We recently invited our neighbors to Winding Pathways for an evening of conversation. It was early winter and talk turned to trees.
“We have an odd tree growing in our yard. I have no idea what it is, but it has bit heart shaped leaves and later in the summer long beans dangle down from it,” said Patty a neighbor from down the street.
Enjoy “Awful” Weather
The woman giving our local television station’s weather report issued a dire warning. “It’s going to be below zero tomorrow with strong wind. It will feel like 30 below zero out. Stay inside”, she advised!
A gorgeous sunrise launched the next morning. It was a cold six below zero out but with only slight wind. Birds and squirrels arrived at the feeder, snatched a few seeds and flew or scampered off to enjoy breakfast in a sunny spot sheltered from the breeze.
Managing Pests
Most people love watching wildlife in their yards, and millions set out bird feeders and improve habitat to encourage colorful and fascinating animals. But there’s a limit. A few July’s ago our garden looked superb. We were harvesting crops like beans, squash, beets and chard. One afternoon we went out to pick a few dinner vegetables and were astonished to find the beans nearly eaten to the ground, the chard gone and the beet tops nibbled to nubbins. It wasn’t the raid of a woodchuck. A whole family of chucks had chosen to squeeze under the fence and convert our garden into their lunch.
Winter Scenes
Enjoy the winter for its color and variety of animal activities.
Secret Lives of Animals – A Winter Read
As kids growing up, we read books our classmates would have considered weird. They were field guides to birds, mammals, fish, wildflowers, rocks and the weather. Color plates of animals, trees and all sorts of other living things fascinated us. Range maps taught geography, and the text good writing.
Smarter Than We Think
Watching backyard wildlife yields amazing sights and education. We recently noticed two things at Winding Pathways that reminded us about how many animals are downright smart.